Slow Way Home

About the Book

On the surface, Brandon Willard seems like your average eight-year-old boy. He loves his mama, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and G. I. Joe. But Brandon's life is anything but typical.

Wise beyond his years, Brandon understands he's the only one in this world he can count on. It's an outlook that serves him well the day his mama leaves him behind at the Raleigh bus station and sets off to Canada with "her destiny" -- the latest man that she hopes will bring her happiness. The day his mother leaves, Brandon takes the first step toward shaping his own destiny. Soon he sends himself spending pleasant days playing with his cousins on his grandparents' farm and trying to forget the past. In the safety of that place, Brandon finally is able to trust the love of an adult to help iron out the wiry places until his nerves are as steady as any other boy's.

But when Sophie Willard shows up a year later with a determined look in her eye and a new man in tow, Brandon's grandparents ignore a judge's ruling and flee the state with Brandon. Creating a new life and identity in a small Florida town, Brandon meets the people who will fill him with self-worth and self-respect. He slowly becomes involved with "God's Hospital," a church run by the gregarious Sister Delores, a woman who is committed to a life of service for all members of the community, black and white, regardless of some townsfolk's disapproval.

Educator and Librarian Resources

Critical Praise

“Slow Way Home is a warm, witty, fresh, and innovative novel.” — --Homer Hickam, author of October Sky

“Slow Way Home is a gem -- both gritty and heartwarming at once. A wonderful, emotional read.” — --Lee Smith, author of The Last Girls

“Slow Way Home is a novel for the heart. It is pitch perfect and the character Brandon is going to linger in a lot of minds. The opening chapter is one of the most poignant and poweful I have ever read. This is a fine book.” — Anne Rivers Siddons, author of Nora, Nora

“A gentle story suffused with brutal truths, almost fable-like in its resonant simplicity.....a journey well worth taking.” — --Tim Farrington, author of The Monk Downstairs

“In a remarkably consistent narrative voice, Morris takes us along for a moving, funny ride...” — --Silas House, author of Clay's Quilt and A Parchment of Leaves

“Slow Way Home is a journey of the human spirit and its themes... make it a novel for the ages.” — --Richard Paul Evans, author of The Christmas Box

“Master storyteller Michael Morris has delivered another stunning novel….touching, truthful, and beautifully written. It is not to be missed!” — --Lynne Hinton, author of Friendship Cake

“a compulsively readable novel with many fine passages on the importance of home and the comforts of faith.” — Booklist

“[A] tour de force... told in a Southern style that invites readers in and asks them to stay awhile.” — --Gadsden Times (Northeast AL)

“Michael Morris is someone to watch .. .[Slow Way Home is] courageous and heartbreaking and moving....” — --The Birmingham News

“Brandon Willard may well be one of the most endearing novel narrators since Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird.” — -- Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, 9/28/03

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